GROW Series Part 1: eCommerce Growth using Omnisend’s Welcome Email Series

With new eCommerce brands popping up every day, your brand’s survival really depends on how quickly you can turn a visitor into a buyer.

Don’t rely on a “Build it & they will come” strategy, & wait for revenue to happen. You need to be pro-active, & have the mindset of setting up for success from the first click.

In this How-To article, we break down what is a Welcome Email Series, & how it can help advance your top-of-funnel revenue, & most importantly, get that first sale to open the door.

We also show & tell the steps to set this up using Omnisend Marketing for your Shopify or WooCommerce online store.

A welcome email series is a well-designed email automation flow curated to encourage first-time visitors & subscribers to commit the first sale with your brand.

What dantiv discovered in our efforts to support eCommerce customers is that: while there are many tactics which can help to grow eCom revenue, all of them do require a “first step”.

That “first step” is the very first purchase from your brand. Only after the first purchase & the customer actually likes the product, can we start to implement other features like volume discounts & up/cross-sells.

The welcome email series is designed to do just that; by offering a small discount or incentive, you make it super easy for them to commit the first purchase

But don’t just stop at a discount! Tap on this chance to make a lasting connection with your audience. Below are some ideas for consideration.

• Share your Brand Values Let them know about your brand! Share why you started, what sets you apart, & strike an emotional connection.
• Encourage a signup to socials For brands who are heavy on socials for conversion, don’t forget to lay them out so that visitors can follow!
• Lead with your Top-sellers Every brand has those “Most popular” products that just clicks. Show them front and center so that new leads start off on the right foot.
• Reviews & Case-studies Use your reviews & case studies to boost conversion, using social equity & trust.

Moving on to some workflows to support eCommerce Growth.

You don’t need much to start, but it helps to work with tested & proven strategies to aim for results fast! From there, you can start to adjust for optimum performance.

Below are some ways to structure your welcome email series for quick results:

• Show the Discount It’s safe to say that consumers nowadays are very practical when it comes to buying things. Use this workflow:
  [Visitor Registers > Send email with time limit discount code > wait 3 days > send 2nd email reminder > wait 1 week > send third & final reminder to use discount before it expires]
• Emotional-Engage for Conversion Share your brand story first, saving the discount for the last resort.
  [Visitor Registers > Send intro email about brand values > wait 3 days > send 2nd email displaying socials or reviews > wait 5 days > Highlight most popular products > wait 5 days > Offer the discount code]
• Happy Medium For brands trying to grow margins, try to attempt conversion first without the discount code; offering it at a later stage:
  [Visitor Registers > Send intro email about brand > wait 3 days > Send 2nd email with time limit discount code > wait 5 days > Highlight most popular products > wait 5 days > send final reminder to use discount before it expires]

Here’s hoping you have some new ideas to start the ball rolling!

To setup Omnisend for Shopify Email Marketing, follow these steps:

1. Login to your Omnisend account first! This makes it easier to connect your account later on.

2. Find & install the Omnisend app in shopify app store

3. Once installed, you’d be brought to the registration page for Omnisend. Scroll down all the way & log in with your Omnisend account.

4. Omnisend will handle the back-end work, after which you will be brough to the app store page again. Click “Open” here!

5. Once you’ve clicked “Open” you’ll be given the option to set your brand assets – let’s skip this for now & proceed to “I’ll do this later”.

6. You’re done connecting your account 🙂 just a little bit more so we can setup a basic automation. Head to “Automations” then “Explore Templates”.

7. Select “Welcome” type & choose from any of the ready-made welcome templates!

8. The workflow is ready but we recommend to remove the “Subscription method is Sign-up form” & “First subscription is True” for making it easy to go from end to end first.

9. Looks something like this! Remember to enable the workflow in the top right corner!

10. Back in your automation dashboard, you should see your workflow active & enabled.

11. Lastly, Let’s create & enable the actual form on your website. Go to “Forms” then “Preview & Launch Form”.

12. The template will be created which you can edit the form behavior in the right side. For now, let’s “Enable Form”.

13. You’re finally done! Now when visitors or subscribers sign up to the form, they’re added to the engagement flow with Omnisend’s welcome email series automation!

The Omnisend portion is the same at Shopify. Let’s jump into the initial WooCommerce portion:

1. Important! Login to your Omnisend account first.

2. Find, install, & activate the Omnisend app in WordPress Plugins.

3. Once activated, head over to the WordPress plugin page for Omnisend. Select the “Connect” option.

4. The Omnisend connection page will open. Click “Approve”.

5. Once done, Omnisend will handle the rest! You’ll be able to continue on from step 5 in the Shopify workflow above from here on 🙂

By using Omnisend for eCommerce marketing & setting up a welcome email series, you’ve effectively taken the first (automated) step to optimizing your top-of-funnel for getting that first sale.

However, getting the customer through the door is only half the battle. As your customer base expands, so does your opportunity to maximize the value of every single checkout.

The next logical step is learning how to grow average order value with dantiv.

As eCommerce specialists, we’re committed to helping SMEs setup & deliver eCommerce email marketing performance at scale. Follow up as we Build the Next.